One day, I woke to find you lodged in my chest.
You had peeled back the skin in surgical fashion, then driven in
like a stake, flush with the sternum.
What am I to do with a man between my lungs?

I clean the wound as best I can and wait for your next move.

I read ahead to the end of our story. Told it to you. We laughed, then and wept later, in private:

We change with the seasons, our bones softening to allow for the other’s. In Spring, I leave you with a crown of daisies. You leave me with a kiss.

Delicate now, I lay my bones out one by one. The first is found to contain a colony of bees. Another is home to a sparrow which comes and goes through a hole pecked 1.5 inches in diameter. A third has fully succumbed to dust and is held in a cloud-shaped jar which fluctuates in ways of shape, as is the habit of cloud-like entities.

When time has come to dissect my skull, I call out one last entreaty of the physical world: a dinner invitation. Serving out a platter of ****** features, I cease to exist.

I want to go back to my roots,
to playgrounds and sunsets, soft grasses.
To silky skin, where winds blew
pink and unfamiliar. To before.

i look for you on city sidewalks, fourth floors, and various astral planes - you
aren't one to make yourself known but
leave clues like
                               1.    leaves in the autumn wind
                               2.    period novels
                               3.    the occasional lottery number

(I mean it this time)

We could
fly to the moon or

have kids.

Brackish thing,
with waves for eyes,
winks steely blue under
moonlight, manlight.

Watch me diss a p
pe a  r     s
     o eas
y

li ke  s
     tr a nger
         sto a   ju ng
                             le

I’m all in, all ears
(You skip a beat)

/

As gull lifts from land, I will leave you to find kinder winds, subtler seas
-The earth has received my dues and thus sceneries come to pass.-

Now,
In light of past dawns there is

bound to be no horizon (there are
   birds
                         up
            flocking
                                         ­    into
space)

Stragglers
p
      l
   u  m
  m
e
        t

down and one
lands on my
toes.

Been travelling rogue
It lights my tongue on fire, it
Suits me well, i find

And *******, will you stop falling in love at the library

I no longer believe you've left my head, I mean,

the idea of your fingers interlocked with my own

echoes at me in the most unproductive ways.

I, phantom limb, sense there's mo re

to miss than flesh.


Laugh along with Go

d, pick

at scabs, wrinkle my nose.


Notice

sunsets, grab for mothers' hands, choke

on water.

I made sure to /bruise/ your neck before you'd left me- your choker tattoo, compliments of cupid. I'd !******! and !!******!! and !!!******!!! but none of you had come out. I'd gnawed^.^. for your blood but my lips had burst and I'd been left with my own. With unflinching ease, you neatly grabbed me by the teeth and bent bone from gum.

Needless to say, no lesson was learned.

I, the earth, have been neglecting my soils

//

The devil has been in my bed-
Shouts with loud eyes, cures sickness with teeth that keep growing,
Licks my neck.
*
I have been away from home for too long, I
dream of rivers, of fathers with soft voices, of magic,
Where skyline and city puddle together with twinkling light,

where no one's afraid of the dark.

Storm-girl says today's a bad day,
rolled out of bed too late
(I guess),

she still prefers green bananas,
likes to paint with skin for canvas

what i mean is
skin-peel, nothing's real,
how dare they tell me how to feel.

Mornings bring [aches] that
don't go away with time, nights are
restless limbs, cold fingertips. Your lips^-
sunrise. Exhale. An existence of perpetual
sleep, yet I fear to close these eyes
lest your skin touch mine in dreams.
Pause. You'd think time would have
been enough to grow new bones (echo of
crunched snow, blooming sky), but you've been
hiding in the wrinkles of my
knuckles and laughing at me as I
stare too long at old houses, avoid
reflections, count the panes in my
bedroom windows again. Dear.
~
I will surpass you.

I feel melt
           concentrated in the chest, legs, brain, it is most hinderous.
           For instance, upon entering small enough rooms, thinking
           too hard, or looking too closely at my skin, some sort of ladle
           is at once ****** down my throat and grates forgotten
           membranes in the dark. It works up a soup, it does, and all
           the while I totter. My, what a dance!, though I can't say I'm
           glad to have taken to the floor. In fact!, the step of liquids
           flushing every which way inside drives one quite to the edge!
           Bonkers! I'd rather It'd just quit it's game, this soup.              
           I'd rather it just
spill.

I, ripe
fruit,
a-wait dreams,
legends, storms~
In song, become
girl, with voice, hair,
lips, let me ex
press to you the welling,
welting of
the cardiovascular.
Precipice of a
smile, sultry swirl of
cloud before the
wet. Orange
skies cut to
red. Brok
en clocks because maybe without time they'll get here before I
wilt.

I've decided  to
swallow you w
h ole. That way
, I'll get the full
flavor without
having you lin
ger about amo
ng my  t e e th.

See,  I  haven 't
the palate for y
our earthy afte
r t   a s    t  e   s.

At 11 AM, I awoke and went to inform my mother that the day was timeless. I then sat amongst it and waited for the thing to recommence/

It didn't.

Later, I
found myself in aisle no. 5 (an obligation valued before the supposed ceasing of time), becoming - !desperado! in aisle no. 5, 5 for baking, because baking is community, comfort, a kiss on the forehead, a dream. Disgusted by the
lighting
of the place, I hurried with my business, out and past the parking lot people who appeared quite oblivious to this state of affairs. One glanced at me, but my aisle 5 eyes took care of the situation.

I woke up in the car, tried my hardest to ignore the fakeness of the dash clock, and pulled
out
into the road, leaving aisle 5 behind in some pop-up book land of apparent responsibility.

And cried, as it is oh so weary to crave death in a place so meant for life.
  
∞

Last night, I died my hair blue. To match the blue
dresses I seem to wear or the earrings. There has been blue in my dreams, and,
naturally,
when I look over at the sky and out at the sea (a few chosen molecules happening to scatter that wavelength best).

_ Beneath _ my skin, it tosses  e n d l e s s,
as well as on ^top^ where I draw it in as
      l          w         r  petals
f          o           e        
and ((((oceans)))) for all eyes.

It’s a place, blue is. It’s in my head and waiting to plunge at my eyelids if they should ever close.
~ Blue ~ is:

  erase
  expose
  rest

  Pulse. His eyes. Pulse. Are gone; this is a new blue, a deeper blue, a me-er blue. My own. (!+!+!)

Turns out- you were mostly whole with a few ruts, and I, a smattering of solids, was just enough to fill them in till they'd grown out.

So I try and paint you. Because I was driving home last night and then, all of a sudden, someone turned the street signs turned into your smiles and the traffic lights into your eyes. Upon sketching out your jaw, the arc of your cheek, the nose line you so despised, I grow weary and elect to go with a sunset instead. Having limited canvas, I carefully rip your face in two, detaching the teeth from the smiling eyes, the upper from the lower. The symbolism disappears and what once resided on the backing of my scenery shot becomes a lone mouth: a strangers mouth. I erase it because it's none of my business.

Spring folds,
its deck shred
'cross poppy laden
fields.

Away with the heavy air and a bit lighter on the lungs!
          Color seeps
          from stone and skies
          part.

In evening-time, we walk past the old playgrounds, as always, while sleepy suns settle their eyes on lazy toes and swing-set reds.
~
Land that is known,
stay awhile.

Steering wheels too. I grip and they slip. Zero-gravity throats and an acute awareness of how heavy limbs become when theyre unwanted. Flash past street signs ("Virginia", "Jefferson") and cars, those glistening hunks of destiny.

Dont criticize personalities, it kills.

My veins,
                    blue things that squirm about under cuts of flesh,
call out louder than usual. Same with car tires and philosophy-laced heavens. I, the pulp, am insignificant and so plead for allowances in regards to my ****** appetite.

(The sun sets)

Ask what their favorite colors are

Check in with them in the morning

Check out in the evening

Make plans for the next day

Follow through with your plans for the next day

Choose walking paths away from busy roads or large falls

Learn all their most used phone numbers

Help them get dressed

Laugh when they ask you to walk with them while near busy roads or large falls

Call all their most used phone numbers

Hold their hand

Hold their hand tighter when they reach for things to **** themselves with

Laugh when they call you a bad friend

Label them. If you don’t, you’ll take it personally.

touch me again, I
dar*e
you. I will string out your
crown-jewel insides and bite
off your hands  ~or would, if following through was a strength of mine-

Sounds of him moving on from downstairs, bludgeon me.

Today i will resolve my emotions for the men I've loved who are incapable of loving me. I will fill my throat with things that wish to stay there. The water will rush to greet me with infinite reassurances, engulfing my favorite secrets, kissing them in recognition, stroking me into peaceful slumber, lasting. Oh, lake, love, keep me into forever.

even
hold my hand in public but
said my name, first and middle, echoing it around our bed as if daring me to look him in the eyes. Swaddled me in beargolve spice, unstitched the painstakingly-put seams in my lungs while i slept, cut off fingertips once mine and rooted them to the fertile country of his gums.

I knew I'd never love him but
      tried to grab for the lining of his esophagus or the old-time winds in his eyes. I'd always miss, so I guess that makes me the lemon.

Last time I checked, there were arms attached to shoulders and teeth studded gums (yesterday). The sky was if one were to look ^up^, and, when passing food trucks in the alley, the nose would  envelop ***** scents with its own series of flares and snorts. Yesterday

I came across your bones in the backyard~ they'd been crusted over by small, cloud-shaped lichens. I fed them with holy water and met no response. The sky may have been purple but it probably wasn't ( I didn't look). With one deep sigh, I lobbed a femur to the neighbor's dog.

I've been eating zebra cakes. Partly for the taste [creamed-up skies, maybe a swan or two reflected in a lake] but also for the animal on the package with his confetti and rainbowed smiles. Four days till Good Friday, lord.

In eveningtime, I sit inside myself and bang on the cockleshell walls with my ribs. Given time, the vibrations start to numb-up the cells of my nerves and lose effect -anyways. Sleep is with a machine who touches me through perfectly oiled axles and aching laughters. He doesn't hear me when i tell him I don't want his incisions and leaves knives by my bed to desensitize any qualms.

Last weekend, I didn't go home with the pineapple boys. I climbed through arms and fingers and faces, but my lover (machine) had since ascended - I kept asking which of the walls i could follow to find him, but They laughed and told me i was blind.

Daisy boy, (rote eyes, hand-me-down lips)
you could
open your sugarsnake veins to me, polish my silverware,
outline my edges.* If you listen a bit harder than not at all,
there might be a cha
nce for us to paint our skin with sunrises or
make it to the movies.

I was sitting with the lights on when all of a sudden the last person left the room and you came out of no where you ran me over you looked into me you flicked me off your earth with your eyes your eyes i always loved your eyes id always tell you how they were sculpted wings turbulent seas winds birds you stopped looking.

these hands have quieted their wobbling, id have hoped my heartdve as well.

Oh, head of mine, dearest, darkest

Its all skylights from here.
(Eros collects any leftover heartbeats and I smile)

Holding the stars to his face, its nonsensical, this stash of inhabited husks and sienna skies ; we should quake with

anticipation. "Yes," we'll be grunged cigarettes, coaxed, a rained-out velvet, I'll smash bottles on traincars- like so - ($) - and he'll pick the scraps out of us with his teeth

*******.

Its a sea pebble sky that looms tonight and it reminds me of how very gatsby my innards feel
2. Hah, its darkened to a deadly velvet in these few seconds- what passion!
3. It was in the dairy aisle yesterday that i added the need to incise my skin to the shopping list
4. I especially enjoy times at which the snow has yet to cloak the sheath of a frozen lake- one is able to see perfectly the rocks and withered leaves strewn beneath
5. She always apologizes the next morning.

I do not ache with your absence.
I do not ache with your absense-
legs walk the same stride, tongues flick syllables,
Air is pressed into lungs and eyes see. We were never the same. We were never.

Tiger, i
swim at night to keep my skins
Pale. And marinate moon-dipped tundras.
Splash, ripples as i spear tides with flesh and bone, collapse into waters taut as untested brides. 'Paradise,' I'm told, though my eyes reveal but shadows upon the shores. Not to be depressing.
Stay under with me a bit longer my love.

'All glory and honor', to You, bathed me with yellowed fingers. Father.
Whips me across each molar for penance, offers me glue in the morning- the kind he uses on letters when saliva won't seal the deal.

I, the cliché, trim my fingernails with a knife and mostly miss target. Slide into various seas, daily, with tincan pupils.

Knock,
knock, its time again

Wicked, wacked,
Watch as we about-face this perfect paring because
about now
the timer ive set will be going off and, GOD knows, we CANT brown the silly crust this time. *****. Fake ghosts and roaming shores, pack them and go $i die$ somewhere with more tranquil winds, quiet skies. Earth, with you i have coalesced- alas, fae tongues have yet to forget to grab ankles and pull.

I apologize for the imprints of my claws.

Allow me to
c o l l  e  c   t.
along tunneled ceilings^ and
unused bones.
They tell me that fire
is hot**
and lakes freeze [over in winter
but I can feel
china doll shar"ds underlying
skins. (Some mornings, when I wake up too early, they've protruded a bit so that they catch against my bedsheets and ensnare us. I grab a hammer from under the bed, pound out silt-size rubies and tangles of flesh)


(Oh, mother, mother, take me in, take me in)